Patti Nielson: "Hide under the tables, kids"

When E & D entered the library, Patti Nielson urged the students to hide underneath the tables. Hiding underneath the tables is a retarded strategy to try to avoid being shot. The students in the library would have had a far greater chance of not being shot if they ran away. The kids hiding underneath the tables were sitting ducks for E & D. If the students sprinted away from E & D while zigzagging, the kids would have had a much greater chance of not being shot. It's far harder to shot a moving target that is zigzagging than a stationary person underneath the tables. When the students hid underneath the tables of the library, what was to stop E & D from just kneeling down and shooting the students like sitting ducks? Nothing. The students hiding underneath the tables were completely 100% at E & D's mercy.

Dave Sander also instructed the students in the lunchroom to hide underneath the tables in there. But Mr. Sanders soon realized that is a retarded strategy and urged the students to make a run for it. The students did make a run for it then. This undoubtedly saved many students' lives.

You have to understand that teachers aren't normally prepared for situations like these. At least not like today.
I don't blame her one bit.
Look at it this way:
-She didn't know exactly what was going on
-She didn't know how many shooters there were (she initially thought there was only one)
-She didn't know where they were (she saw them on top of the west stairs, so running out of the emergency exit was not an option)
You think differently under stress.
Maybe she thought that the shooters would glance in, think that nobody was there and moved on.
Once they entered, it was already too late to try to move without risking more lives.

However, that first scream of the killer, entering the library? Everybody get up!

gumshoe wrote:

When E & D entered the library, Patti Nielson urged the students to hide underneath the tables. Hiding underneath the tables is a retarded strategy to try to avoid being shot.

Yes, but that was people were at the time taught to do. That was what police were training people to do in an emergency. This is because a spree killing Columbine-style wasn't really what they were expecting. Back in the day the "default" shooting event they had in mind was a sort of terrorist-hostage-taking scenario, where there was more danger of civilians being killed in a crossfire rather than being deliberately targeted by the assilants.

So the schools had procedures that prepared them to minimize casualities in a terrorist-hostage secnario, not for a columbine secnario.

Columbine was really the watershed event that would make people re-asess these tactics and also realize a spree-killer is a more likely and frequent threat.

Nowadays (finally!) after many more shooting people realized that solid doors without windows and locking themselves in is the best strategy. Police also (In the US and Finland at least) have also learned that its vital to respond as quickly as possible and pursue the assilant even if its just a foot patrol of random cops, rather than wait for SWAT.

Hindsight is 20/20, but still it seems to have taken too long for the police to adjust. Auvinen had 40 mins before the Finnish SWAT arrived.

gumshoe wrote:

When E & D entered the library, Patti Nielson urged the students to hide underneath the tables.  Hiding underneath the tables is a retarded strategy to try to avoid being shot.  The students in the library would have had a far greater chance of not being shot if they ran away.  The kids hiding underneath the tables were sitting ducks for E & D.  If the students sprinted away from E & D while zigzagging, the kids would have had a much greater chance of not being shot.  It's far harder to shot a moving target that is zigzagging than a stationary person underneath the tables.  When the students hid underneath the tables of the library, what was to stop E & D from just kneeling down and shooting the students like sitting ducks?  Nothing.  The students hiding underneath the tables were completely 100% at E & D's mercy.

Dave Sander also instructed the students in the lunchroom to hide underneath the tables in there.  But Mr. Sanders soon realized that is a retarded strategy and urged the students to make a run for it.  The students did make a run for it then.  This undoubtedly saved many students' lives.

I'm gonna go ahead and be mean here and risk taking the boot from Jenn and i'll just say that I absolutely love how people who sit comfy in their chairs get to judge how "retarded" people's actions were in an EXTREMELY stressful situation, a situation they were never prepared nor trained for.

"B-but Magna! A few kids could've tackled Eric and Dylan!"
Yes ,my child. They totally should've tried to tackle two guys armed to the teeth, who possibly had explosives on themselves ready to blow in case they DID get tackled, or risk getting their skulls blown off their necks by a possible 3rd , 4th etc. shooter (but all the kids TOTALLY there knew only E and D were there, I mean duhh! They were just too lazy to do it ey lads). Not to mention the adrenaline rush that could make you freeze in place. I lived a traumatic event in which I tried to phone for help and the adrenaline rush was so intense I had to call 5 times because my fingers couldn't press the buttons right.

For everyone on this forum and out of it who thinks this way: 6-21-3-11   25-15-21  in the alphabet.

These kind of things trigger me so hard and no amount of "right to a different opinion" can excuse this -shall I put it lightly- silly way of thinking.

My god how I'd love to throw such people in traumatic situations then point and laugh how "retarded" they are for acting irrational.

This is not something that takes a lot of careful, cool analysis. It is very obvious that hiding underneath tables would not be an effective strategy to avoid being shot. It is common sense that running away from shooters while zigzagging would be far more effective. If Patti Nielson had just kept her mouth shut, all or most of the students in the library would have run away from E & D like normal people.

According to the Final Report:


11:24 AM

·         Several of the school’s custodial staff and faculty, including teacher William “Dave” Sanders, are attempting to find out what is happening outside the school cafeteria.  

·         Realizing a danger, Sanders and school custodians Jon Curtis and Jay Gallatine enter the cafeteria and direct students to get down.  Students begin to hide under the cafeteria tables.  

·         Deputy Paul Smoker, a motorcycle patrolman for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, is writing a speeding ticket on West Bowles Avenue, just west of Pierce Street, when he hears dispatch report that a female is down in the south lower lot of Columbine High School.  Smoker’s traffic stop is just north of the school so he radios dispatch that he is responding to the school.  

·         Teacher Patricia (Patti) Nielson is working as a hall monitor when she hears a commotion outside the west entrance of the school.  She looks outside, seeing two male students with what she thinks are toy guns, and assumes that a school video production is being taped.  She is on her way outside to tell the boys to “knock it off” when one of the  gunmen fires into the west entrance, causing glass and metal fragments to spray into the hallway.  Nielson suffers abrasions to her shoulder, forearm and knee from the fragments.  

·         Beside Nielson is student Brian Anderson.  Brian had been told by a teacher to get out of the school because of the explosions and commotion. Not realizing where the danger is, he exits through the first set of west doors, and is caught between the interior and exterior doors when Harris fires at the doors in front of him, shattering the glass.  Brian suffers wounds to his chest from the flying glass fragments.  

·         Despite their injuries, Patti Nielson and Brian are able to flee into the school library while Harris and Klebold are distracted by the arrival of Deputy Gardner. Gardner has just pulled up in the lower south parking lot of the school with the lights on his patrol car flashing and the siren sounding.  

·         As Gardner steps out of his patrol car, Eric Harris turns his attention from shooting into the west doors of the high school to the student parking lot and to the deputy.  Gardner, particularly visible in the bright yellow shirt of the community resource officer’s uniform, is the target of Harris’ bullets. Harris fires about 10 shots at the deputy with his rifle before his weapon jams.  

·         Gardner fires four shots at Harris.    

·         Harris spins hard to his right and Gardner momentarily thinks he has hit him. Seconds later, Harris begins shooting again at the deputy. Although Gardner’s patrol car is not hit by bullets, two vehicles that he is parked behind are hit by Harris’ gunfire.  Investigators later found two bullet holes in each of the cars.    

·         Harris then turns and enters the school through the west doors.  

·         Students in the cafeteria realize the activity occurring outside is more serious than a senior prank.  A mass exodus of students is seen on the school’s surveillance videotape as students escape up the stairs from the cafeteria to the second level.  Several students recalled Sanders directing them to safety by telling them to go down the hallway to the east side exits of the school.


11:25 AM

·         Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office dispatch advises that there are possible shots fired at Columbine High School. “Attention, south units.  Possible shots fired at Columbine High School, 6201 S. Pierce, possibly in the south lower lot towards the east end.  One female is down.”  

·         Teacher Patti Nielson, hiding under the front counter in the school library, calls 911 to report shots being fired outside the library.    

 
11:26 AM

·         Littleton Fire Department dispatches a fire engine to the explosion and grass fire on Wadsworth.  

·         After exchanging gunfire with Harris, Gardner calls on his police radio for additional units. “Shots in the building.  I need someone in the south lot with me.”  

·         Dispatch reports several shots fired at Columbine High School.  

·         Teacher’s 911 call from inside the library reports smoke coming in through the doorway.  She yells at students to get on the floor and under the tables.  

·         Jefferson County Deputies Scott Taborsky and Paul Smoker arrive on the west side of the school and begin the rescue of two wounded students lying on the ground near the ballfields.  

·         Smoker sees Gardner down the hill to his right, holding a service pistol. Gardner yells to Smoker as a gunman, carrying a semi-automatic rifle, appears on the inside of the double doors.    

·         Harris, leaning out of a broken window on the set of double doors into the school, begins shooting a rifle. Smoker fires three rounds at him and the gunman disappears from the window.  Smoker continues to hear gunfire from inside the building as more students flee from the school.    

·         Student witnesses who entered the north main hallway from adjoining classrooms see Klebold and Harris standing just inside the school’s northwest entry doors.  Both suspects, they later recalled, are armed with guns. Witnesses see  Klebold fire a semi-automatic weapon east towards the students in the main hallway and south down the library hallway.  They also hear bullets hitting lockers and other objects in the hallway as students run for cover.  

·         A student in the gym hallway observes  Klebold and Harris walking east down the north hallway.  Both are firing weapons … and both are laughing.  

·         Student Stephanie Munson and another student walk out of a classroom into the school’s north main hallway.  As they enter the hallway, they see a teacher and several students running behind them.  The teacher yells for the students to “Run!  Get out of the building!”  They both run through the main hallway leading to the school’s main entrance on the east side.  Stephanie is shot in the ankle but both  are able to escape the building and continue across the street to safety at Leawood Park.  

·         A student in the counseling hallway sees students in the north hallway running east through the lobby. Klebold is running behind them, but comes to an abrupt halt near a bank of phones at the entrance to the main lobby area.  

·         Yet another student, on the telephone with her mother, glances up in time to see the sleeve of a black trench coat shooting a  TEC-9 towards the main entrance of the school.  She drops the phone and hides in a nearby restroom until she can no longer hear any activity in the hallway.  The gunman, she assumes, has turned around and gone back the other way. She goes back to the phone and whispers to her mother to come pick her up and then escapes through the east doors to the outside.  Her mother’s cell phone bill shows this call is made between 11:23 and 11:26 and lasts 3.8 minutes.  The student estimates that she talks to her mother about two minutes before she sees the gunman.  

·         Klebold is last seen running back down the north hall to the west in the direction of the library hallway.  

·         Teacher Dave Sanders, still on the second level, turns into the library hallway toward the west entrance and the sounds of gunfire.  As Sanders passes the entrance to the library, he apparently sees a gunman coming toward him from the north hallway.  Sanders turns around and heads back the way he had just come.  Just before turning the corner to go east, he is shot. Sanders is able to crawl to the corner of the Science hallway where teacher Richard Long helps him down the hallway into classroom SCI-3.  A group of students, including two Eagle Scouts, Aaron Hancey and Kevin Starkey, gather around him, attending to his injuries and administering first aid.  


11:27 AM

·         Deputy Gardner, who is in the south parking lot and has exchanged gunfire with Eric Harris, radios dispatch with a “Code 33.”  Code 33 means “officer needs emergency assistance.”  

·         Deputy Magor sets up a road block on Pierce Street at the southeast corner of the student parking lot. He immediately is approached by a teacher as well as students reporting a person in the school with a gun.    

·         Dispatch announces that possible hand-grenades have been detonated at the school.  

·         Harris and Klebold walk up and down the library hallway, randomly shooting but not injuring anyone. Investigators later scrutinized Nielson’s 911 call made from the school’s library.  From the tape, the investigation shows that Harris and Klebold spend almost three minutes in the library hallway randomly shooting their weapons and lighting and throwing pipe bombs. They throw two pipe bombs in the hallway and more over the stairway railing to the lower level.  

·         A pipe bomb is thrown into the stairwell from the library hallway and lands in the cafeteria below.  A large flash is observed on the cafeteria videotape.  A second pipe bomb also is thrown into the cafeteria from the upper level.  

·         Teacher Patti Nielson, hiding under the front counter just inside the library entrance, continues her phone contact with the Jefferson County dispatcher.  Nielson reacts to the sounds of gunshots and explosions coming from the hallway outside the library.  Interspersed with short conversations with the dispatcher, she screams at the students in the library to get under the tables and to stay hidden.  She then reports that a gunman is just outside the library entrance.  


11:28 AM

·         Numerous students, running  from the school,  seek safety behind Taborsky’s patrol car  on the school’s west side.  The students tell the deputies that gunmen are inside the school randomly shooting at people with UZIs or shotguns and throwing hand-grenades.  They describe the younger of the two gunmen as possibly high school age and wearing a black trench coat and a hat on backwards.  The second gunman is described as “taller, a little older” and also wearing a black trench coat.  

·         Smoker can see other deputies on the west side of the school near the concrete shed and the ballfields.  

·         Dispatch alerts the deputies that the shooter may have a shotgun.  

·         A 911 call reports that students are injured outside the school.  

·         Deputy Smoker radios that students are saying the shooter is wearing a black trench coat.  


11:29 AM

·         Gardner requests emergency medical response to the west side of the school.  

·         Dispatch alerts all units that Deputy Gardner is under fire and the suspect just ran into the building. “Shots fired on the southwest side with a large weapon.”  

·         Harris and Klebold walk into the school library.  The 911 call records a male voice yelling, “Get up!”

I have to agree with TheSpiral and Magna here. It is a lot easier to say "I would do ...." in an emergency/life or death situation than it is to actually do whatever it is you say your gonna do once you are actually put in that situation. I don't agree with the kids being under the tables either but if I were in Patti Nielson's shoes, can I honestly say I would have had the mindset to tell the kids to run?

I think that had Patti not came into the library, many of the students would have remained there until it was too late. When they really understood that they were in danger, they would have possibly run out into the halls and right into the path of Eric and Dylan (not on purpose of course, but by mistake in trying to find an exit). Then all Eric and Dylan had to do was drop several of their pipe bombs, in addition to random shooting, and the total amounts killed or injured would have been even higher.

Also, how many high school kids do you think had actually thought about how they would get away from an active shooter before Columbine? I was a senior in high school when this occurred and I can tell you I never once considered having to run from someone shooting in my school, much less how I would run or what exit I would run towards. I don't think many, if any, of these kids would have the forethought to run out the door in zigzag pattern to avoid being shot or injured from a pipe bomb.

As others have said, no one faced with an unfamiliar and highly stressful situation knows how they'll act, in this respect she cannot be blamed for acting the way she did. I'll only add that she may have been distracted whilst talking to the emergency responder during the 911 call when she'd have been better served paying attention to where the danger was coming from. Throughout the 911 call explosions, shots and yells could be heard whilst E&D where in the school corridors, so she may have sensed that they were very close and that escaping through the library main entrance would have put them in grave danger. 

The 911 responder may not have been trained for this spree-killing scenario, although she suggested locking the doors and Patti responded that they were right outside and it was too late to close or block the doors by that stage, she would've been putting her own life in danger to do so as E&D making their ways towards the library main entrance. Even if the responder asked her to block the doors earlier in the call, IMO Patti was adamant that the shooter(s) was right outside as she had just seen him at the west entrance during the call and the explosions/gunfire echo may have made them seem nearer to the library throughout the 911 call. 

I don't know why didn't try hiding in one of the adjacent rooms next to the library? Surely these rooms had doors and they would've made for a better hiding place than underneath exposed tables.

I don't know why didn't try hiding in one of the adjacent rooms next to the library? wrote:

I forget his name, but one student did hide in one of these rooms with (iirc) another student and a teacher.

In hindsight hiding in one of these rooms would've been safer, but if Eric and Dylan had entered one of them, would there have been any means of escape? Although I'm sure I read one of these rooms did have a back exit.

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Seems there were several rooms adjacent all with doors. On the one hand, it may have been easy to kill/injure several people had they been spotted by E&D either through the door windows and bombs thrown inwards, but I think especially if there were enough people/furniture and the doors barricaded, E&D would've had a hard time attempting to enter or they could've lost interest and moved on to easier targets knowing their time was limited the cops being on their trail. If it panned out this way and E&D had been able to enter a room where several where taking refuge, there would've been mass panic as they were no longer hidden and far fewer would've been killed/injured as they've been running like hell.

TheSpiral wrote:

Maybe she thought that the shooters would glance in, think that nobody was there and moved on.

Pretty much my opinion on this topic.

TheSpiral wrote:

You have to understand that teachers aren't normally prepared for situations like these. At least not like today.
I don't blame her one bit.
Look at it this way:
-She didn't know exactly what was going on
-She didn't know how many shooters there were (she initially thought there was only one)
-She didn't know where they were (she saw them on top of the west stairs, so running out of the emergency exit was not an option)
You think differently under stress.
Maybe she thought that the shooters would glance in, think that nobody was there and moved on.
Once they entered, it was already too late to try to move without risking more lives.

I agree with you. Considering what was going on she did what she felt was best in that situation. I am sure that Patti herself has questioned her own actions on that day more then we ever could.

gumshoe wrote:

This is not something that takes a lot of careful, cool analysis.  It is very obvious that hiding underneath tables would not be an effective strategy to avoid being shot.  It is common sense that running away from shooters while zigzagging would be far more effective.  If Patti Nielson had just kept her mouth shut, all or most of the students in the library would have run away from E & D like normal people.

For decades, teachers and students were taught to go under tables/desks during drills. Earthquake, tornado, WWIII, etc. It was probably instinct due to dealing with these drills. Crisis.....under the tables!


You need to step outside and get a breath of fresh air if you're going to blame her for any part of this massacre.


As others have said, I'd like to see you in a crisis so we can critique your reactions.

She was following instructions from Richard Long, who was instructed by Dave Sanders to tell kids to hide under tables.